O'Gara rains on Wasps' parade

Munster's rediscovery of their old selves behind their captain's flawless control sends them to the quarterfinals with nothing to fear — even if the next step towards a second Cardiff final in two years takes them, in April, to Gloucester where the locals are unbeaten in 21 matches spanning 20 months.

Wasps, for one, will not be the least surprised should the crown end up where theylost it, at Thomond Park.

A bad night for English rugby was made worse by Simon Shaw's elimination from the Six Nations starter against Wales at Twickenham on Saturday week — and probably their second match in Italy — after the giant lock was carried off with damaged ankle ligaments.

The rain had been sheeting down for hours on Saturday when O'Gara called his forwards into a huddle to demand a big performance.

Directing operations behind a dominant pack, he hardly called a wrong shot. If he had played better in a big match for his province, nobody could remember it. Wasps head coach Shaun Edwards said: "That was a masterclass from an outstanding player. In those conditions, Ronan is one of the best, if not the best in the world.

"His variety of kicks and overall control of the game was superb. You can see why he is such a hero to the people of Munster — a good example of someone who plays with his brains. 'I am a fully paid-up member of his fan club. If I hadn't been coaching Wasps, I'd have stood up and applauded him."

Wasps had too much pride and nous to capitulate the way Gloucester and Sale had done at the same venue in recent pool deciders, but they lost all realistic hope of saving their title with O'Gara's fourth penalty almost half an hour before the end.

That it proved too much for Wasps was no fault of Danny Cipriani's. For all O'Gara's mastery, England's fly half pretender never suffered by comparison, raising brief hopes that Wasps would somehow leave another pock mark on the Munster legend, the way Leicester had done 12 months earlier It could all have been so different after David Doherty's chip-and-chase 14 minutes into the downpour. The 20-year-old wing, in at short notice after Paul Sackey had been taken ill, took a split second to regain his balance and was in the act of diving on the ball as it skidded to the end of the ingoal area when a Munster boot beat him to it.

It belonged to O'Gara, an intervention as critical as any of his five goals or the break which sent Denis Leamy steaming over for the only try late in the game. "I don't think I've ever moved faster in my life. I couldn't believe I got there first," said O'Gara.

In the heat of battle, the Wasps line-out crumbled to the alarming extent that they lost seven throws in the course of losing Shaw and Lawrence Dallaglio to the sin-bin. For all their bravery, they had no answer to Munster's demonstration of how to play wet weather rugby without dropping the ball. For O'Gara, a few more stitches in his torn right ear on top of the 20 put there the previous week was a small price to pay for glory.